Carry Me Down

John Egan is a misfit, a 12-year-old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant. He has been able to detect lies for as long as he can remember and diligently keeps track of them, large and small, in a log of lies.

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John Egan is a misfit, a 12-year-old in the body of a grown man with the voice of a giant. He has been able to detect lies for as long as he can remember and diligently keeps track of them, large and small, in a log of lies.

With an obsession for the Guinness Book of World Records, a keenly inquisitive mind, and a kind of faith, John is like a tuning fork, sensitive to the vibrations within himself and his family's shifting dynamics.

From his changing voice, body, and psyche to his parents' disheartening marital difficulties, this is a trying year in a fragile young boy's life, and when his sanity reaches near collapse, a frightening family catastrophe threatens to ruin what little they have.

This novel is an amazing glimpse of the mind and thoughts of a very young character. The protagonist, an 11 year old boy with a body approaching puberty, a deep voice, and a surprising ability to detect lying statements, is a real misfit. At times his thoughts and behavior seem more like that of a 5 year old; at other times; at other times one can glimpse maturity approaching. He is almost always jealous of his "space", is dreadfully worried about being mistreated or taken for granted, and is somewhat paranoid. I would have given it a higher rating, but the book does not show any real growth of the boy, and it ends with a contrived happy ending. There are also some loose threads - his relationship with the one teacher he liked, but the becomes suspicious of, for instance.

I bought this thinking it must be good if it was shortlisted for 3 book prizes, despite the poor ratings it had already received. I was wrong. It is slow and tedious and generated in me no sympathy with its characters. It could have been severely edited with benefit. If it hadn't been read so well I wouldn't have persevered to the end but the reader was excellent.

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